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Cubism/Transcript
Transcript Text reads: The Mysteries of Life with Tim and Moby A boy, Tim, walks through a garage and finds a cracked mirror. Tim looks at the mirror. TIM: Wow, what a cool looking mirror! Too bad it's cracked. A robot, Moby, comes up behind Tim. He appears distorted in the broken mirror. TIM: Aughh! MOBY: Beep. Tim reads from a typed letter. TIM: Dear Tim and Moby, What is Cubism, and who started it? Thanks, Sydney. Tim puts the letter down. TIM: Cubism is an art style that takes real-world objects and breaks them down into geometric shapes. Each one of these shapes shows the object from a different angle. An image shows a Cubist painting in tones of gray, brown, and black. TIM: These overlapping planes give Cubist paintings a fractured look, almost like looking into a mirror with a bunch of cracks. MOBY: Beep. TIM: The name “Cubism” was first used by a French art critic named Louis Vauxcelles in 1908. An image shows a Cubist painting by Georges Braque. TIM: He described an early Cubist painting as being full of little cubes. The painting was by a French artist named Georges Braque. An image shows Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso. TIM: Braque met the famous Spanish artist, Pablo Picasso, and together, the two effectively launched the Cubist movement. An image shows Paul Cézanne. TIM: But they'd be the first to say that they couldn’t have done it without the influence of another French painter named Paul Cézanne. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Well, Cézanne died in 1906, but two ideas from his later work inspired Picasso and Braque in a big way. An image shows a man standing in front of some trees. The man’s head is replaced by a sphere, his body by a cylinder, and the trees by cones. TIM: First, he believed that objects in nature should be broken down into simple shapes, like cylinders, cones, and spheres. An image shows a pair of brown eyes, with brown, bushy eyebrows. TIM: Second, Cézanne was really interested in binocular vision. The words “binocular vision” are shown with a line in between the eyes. The picture of the man in front of the trees splits into two overlapping images of the same scene from slightly different angles. TIM: Since there's a space between our eyes, what each eye sees before our brain combines the two images into one is slightly different than the other. Picasso and Braque took these ideas even further when they started painting together in 1907. An image shows Picasso and Braque in front of the Eiffel Tower. TIM: They worked in nearby studios in Paris, visiting each other all the time to critique work and share ideas. Images show a painting by Georges Braque and two by Pablo Picasso. TIM: And voila, Cubism was born. A split image on the left shows a self-portrait of Picasso in the Cubist style. TIM: This is a self-portrait Picasso painted in 1907. The split image on the right shows an earlier self-portrait of Picasso in a more traditional style. TIM: And this was a self-portrait he did seven years earlier. See how the old one is more realistic and the new one is way more abstract? An image shows a Picasso painting. TIM: And if you thought that was abstract, take a look at this! This change was a big deal, because Cubism was rejecting one of the most important rules of art at the time: that art should imitate life. An image shows Perugino’s painting in the Sistine Chapel. Horizontal lines and angled vertical lines appear across the painting to show perspective. TIM: Back then, most artists relied on perspective, a series of techniques used to create the illusion of depth in art. An image shows a Georges Braque painting with random green lines showing up at different angles and a black circle with a green question mark in the middle. TIM: Since Cubism looks at objects from multiple angles, it basically throws perspective out the window. Moby closes and opens his eyes. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Right, without that illusion of depth, many Cubist paintings can be a bit confusing to look at. But as abstract as they are, almost all Cubist paintings, like Braque’s "Violin and Candlestick," are based on real objects. An image shows Braque’s painting, "Violin and Candlestick." The word "Violin" and two arrows in white at the top left point to two violin images and the word "Candlestick." Another arrow points to a candlestick image in the painting. TIM: Sometimes you just have to look hard to find them. An image scrolls from right to left showing all of Picasso's "Guernica." TIM: Picasso's 1937 masterpiece, "Guernica," is probably the most famous Cubist painting of all time. It depicts the suffering of a Spanish town after a bombing by the Nazis during the Spanish Civil War. It was Picasso's way of protesting against the horror and violence of war. An image shows the bull in "Guernica," with two red arrows pointing to the bull’s eyes. TIM: See how the eyes of the bull are on the same side of its face, as if you were looking it straight on and from the side at the same time. Trademark Cubism. Moby rearranges his face so that his eyes are on the same side of his face. TIM: Okay, now you're freaking me out. Category:BrainPOP Transcripts Category:BrainPOP Arts & Music Transcripts